


Sins of Omission

by StVincent



Category: RWBY
Genre: Assault, Bystander Effect, F/F, Implied Curb Stomp, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Pre-Relationship, Racism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-21
Updated: 2016-04-21
Packaged: 2018-06-03 14:19:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6614011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StVincent/pseuds/StVincent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Weiss was perplexed to find herself on the receiving end of a very cold shoulder. When she presses Blake about the sudden change in attitude, she learns a lot more about her classmate, and herself, than she'd expected.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Set in the same AU and timeline as <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/6559084"><i>Going Off Script and Straight into Your Hand</i></a>, but very different in subject matter and tone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sins of Omission

**Author's Note:**

> This used to be part of a longer fic, but I split that up when I realized that the subsections were diverging pretty drastically in tone. The first half of [_Going Off Script_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6559084) happens, chronologically, before this fic and its second half happens after.
> 
> Personally, I preferred to keep the fluffy tone of _Going Off Script_ uninterrupted, which is why they’re split into two fics in the first place. I’d recommend reading each fic separately. If, however, you really want to stick with the original timeline: start with [_Going Off Script_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6559084) and follow the note/link in the middle.
> 
> If you read _Going Off Script_ before my retconned links to _Omission_ , you haven’t really missed much, but you might want to stop by and check out the brief [omake](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6559084#omake) I added to _Script_. I’m _paws _itive it’s worth your time.__

Friday afternoon, a fantastic time to hunker down in the library to get the next week’s readings sorted. Weiss headed towards the residence complex to reach the library, but she slowed at the sight of a rowdy party spilling into the common area breezeways. __Five blocks to walk around, or two-and-a-half blocks plus another half block of drunken louts for the shortcut. A 40% reduction in exchange for putting up with some noise.__ She huffed in annoyance as she made her decision.

Picking her way quickly, but carefully, towards the back gate, Weiss rolled her eyes at the usual accoutrements of alcohol-fueled parties: cracked red cups and crumpled beer cans cluttered every makeshift flat surface. What she didn’t expect, however, were the animal noses strapped to several red-faced inebriates, nor the animal ear headbands poking up above the press of bodies. Her momentary confusion was snowballing into revulsion when a particularly loud commotion drew her attention.

They were drunkenly trying to play pin-the-tail-on-the... on-the- _something_. Weiss squinted at the sheets of paper haphazardly taped to a tree trunk. Without her glasses she couldn’t see much detail at this distance, not that there was much detail in the first place. Someone had drawn a crude humanoid shape with a suspiciously lumpy head. Grim curiosity drew her a little closer. _Yes, those lumps were ears._ It didn’t seem like anyone cared much about accuracy in the game either; the biggest cheers followed the most violent attempts, regardless of where the tail ended up.

Weiss looked around with a critical eye. Egged on by a small crowd, one girl was awkwardly lapping punch straight out of the bowl, barely sober enough to hold her canine-eared headband to her head and her hair out of the drink. _A shameful display._ There were several faux tails with broken elastic bands scattered on the ground. _Ripped off._ She saw one partygoer with half a dozen tails tied to his belt. _Like hunting trophies._

She’d been there for less than a minute but already felt thoroughly disgusted by the crass behavior on full display. Weiss frowned at the irony: these brutes acting like animals were clearly demonstrating that they were far less civilized than the faunus they mocked. _How foolish._ She increased her pace, eager to put as much distance between her and these uncouth idiots as possible.

Weiss reviewed her syllabi and reading list as she walked. By the time she reached the library she was fully engaged in study mode, and the memory had been relegated to the back of her mind.

* * *

On Tuesday evening, Weiss made her way to the back of the classroom where Blake was sitting. _And reading, of course._ “Good evening.”

Her greeting was returned with barely a grunt and no eye contact. 

Weiss figured Blake wasn’t the effusive type, but they were at least collegial last time, if not congenial, judging by the glances she’d noticed and the few she stole herself. This seemed quite odd. “May I take this seat?”

For a moment it looked like Blake might deny the request outright, but she finally relented with a shrug and pointedly returned to her book. When class started up, Blake’s attention remained steadfastly focused on the professor and her notes, but her body language exuded frosty anger.

Weiss found herself on the receiving end of a very cold shoulder. _Attached to a very shapely collar bone, with very lovely black locks cascading down around them..._

For some reason her notes were rather sparse today.

* * *

During a lull in class, Weiss removed a page from the back of her notebook. Propriety be damned: if she wanted to pass around notes in class, she’d do it. Despite the hostile atmosphere, she couldn’t help but smile as she added small flourishes to her message. _Maybe it would lessen the tension?_

> Blake Belladonna, what is wrong?

Weiss slid the note across to Blake, making sure it reached her peripheral vision.

For several minutes Blake didn’t even look down, but eventually curiosity got the better of her and she glanced at the note. She went right back to ignoring it for several more minutes. Finally, she wrote in her reply—scowling all the while—before sliding it back dismissively.

> You attended the party.

Weiss looked at the message. _Who knew italic script could look_ angry _?_ _The letters appear to slant two degrees further to the right, and the letterforms seem more angular than usual... Or I’m just projecting._ She tore her attention away from the form of the message and focused on the substance. _The party._ Weiss understood exactly which party. She was pretty angry and disgusted at the party herself, but didn’t understand why it would warrant such cold hostility. She’d never intended to be there in the first place.

> I didn’t attend that despicable thing. I was literally just passing through.

This time, Blake picked up the response immediately. She looked thoughtfully at the message for a long moment, though her lips remained pressed in a tight line.

> I see.

Despite the infuriatingly terse and ambiguous response, Weiss could see that Blake’s posture was a little less tense. _That’s a start._ She looked at the short string of messages. _And the italics aren’t so angry anymore._

Her notes for the rest of class were a lot more thorough than before.

* * *

The rest of the students vacated as quickly as they could, eager to escape the evening class, leaving the two sole occupants of the back row in an empty room. 

Blake turned to face Weiss. “Why is a Schnee taking a faunus law and policy class?” she asked coolly and without preamble.

Weiss raised an eyebrow, clearly having expected to field this question from at least one person, but not at this exact moment. She thought for a minute, trying to decide how much detail to reveal to a near-stranger. “I’ve grown to...” she drew out the next word meaningfully, “ _disapprove_ of my family’s legacy, so I’ve been taking steps to educate myself away from my father’s influence.”

Blake grimaced at the word “legacy,” but she looked somewhat mollified. Amber eyes blinked as she changed topics again. “So you weren’t attending the party,” Blake paused when Weiss nodded in affirmation before continuing. “But did you do anything to stop the party?” 

Although the antagonism had subsided, this still resembled an interrogation. Weiss felt an impulse to snap back in kind, but she managed to blunt her tone. “What are you getting at? Am I on trial for something?”

“I’m taking steps to educate myself,” Blake deflected smoothly.

“About...?” Weiss pressed.

“About your motives.”

“So I _am_ on trial.”

“When the heiress to a company that’s notorious for faunus rights abuses shows up in a faunus law and policy class, it seems unlikely she’s there just for fun,” Blake deadpanned.

_Well, she’s not wrong._ “I want to change how the SDC operates, but I can’t do that if everything I know about the faunus is colored by my father’s viewpoint.”

“I see.” She drummed her fingers across her thigh. “You didn’t try to stop the party.” She wrenched the conversation back towards the interrogation.

“It wasn’t my party and I was just cutting through the courtyard on my way to the library.” Weiss’ tone took on an undercurrent of exasperation. “What was I supposed to do?”

“So you were fine with it?” While the wording was neutral, Blake’s tone was anything but.

Weiss bristled at the accusation and shot back, “absolutely not! But it wasn’t anything worth reporting to the police, either. Yes, they were being reprehensible, racist assholes, but it’s not like they were hurting anyone.”

The frigid mask slammed back into place even colder than before. “Not hurting anyone,” Blake repeated with murder in her voice. “What do you think would have happened if a faunus had walked by?” she hissed. Her amber irises glowed fervidly around tightly constricted pupils, piercing Weiss with an implacable glare.

Weiss’ defensive attitude receded as a cold pit formed in her stomach. _Oh._ There had been several incidents of faunus being assaulted by all-human parties, though none of them at Beacon. _Attacked, beaten, and... worse._ And this had been a party that was dedicated to ridiculing the faunus. It probably wouldn’t have ended well. _Understatement._ Her mind flew back to the vicious pin-the-tail game, the broken tails scattered on the ground, and the mock hunting trophies. She shuddered at the gruesome possibilities.

Blake maintained her glare for several long moments before she seemed to accept Weiss’ look of abject horror as an adequate response. “No one got hurt _this time_.” Finally, she sat back in her chair and her shoulders relaxed.

Seeing the change, Weiss was about to relax, too, when she noticed moisture gathering around long, black lashes. She quickly reassessed her observations. _Correction: she_ slumped _back in her chair and her shoulders_ drooped.

Blake’s gaze was unfocused, blank. She was lost in her thoughts. Deeply distressing thoughts.

Weiss wasn’t sure how to respond to the hollow grief that was now radiating from Blake. She found herself missing the bone-aching chill from before. _At least that’s more familiar._

When Blake spoke again, her empty, clinical tone was markedly incongruous with the tears welling in her eyes. “Roan, 19: dislocated tail and broken leg. Mutsumi, 20: broken jaw and six missing teeth. Mallow, 12: left rabbit ear was nearly torn off.” Her cadence shifted almost imperceptibly. “Kiera ‘Kitty’ Genovese, 21: beaten, sexually assaulted, in a coma for three days, withdrew permanently from college in her senior year.” Blake closed her eyes and let out a slow breath before adding in a quiet voice, “she had been on her way to the library.”

Each brief biography of violent persecution twisted her gut and sent sharp pangs of sympathy through her chest. But it was the detail about going to the library that tapped into her empathy, the parallel hitting too close to home. Then the implications sank in. _Oh._ “I was fine because I’m a human. I didn’t even _think to worry_ because I’m a human. If I were a faunus... that could have been me.”

It was as if Blake hadn’t heard Weiss at all as she continued in the same quiet voice, “it wasn’t dark. There were bystanders who saw and did nothing to stop it, nothing to help. The police weren’t even called until the girl’s study partner had gone looking for her when she was thirty minutes late.”

Weiss was initially horrified by the bystanders’ inaction before she was seized by an uncomfortable truth. Maybe she had been a guilty bystander, too, despite her efforts to change. Would she have intervened if she were there? She desperately wanted the answer to be “yes,” but she honestly wasn’t sure. What _would_ she have done if she were there? _Wait._ Weiss’ what-ifs ground to a halt. _If she were there._ She looked up apprehensively. _I don’t want to be right._ “All of those details...? You... you were there.”

Blake took a moment to compose herself. Her voice was steady. “I was her study partner.” But her hands were shaking. “That could have been me.”

_Oh._ Weiss had braced for the possibility, but it chilled her all the same.

Despite the shaking, Blake reached towards the bow she wore in her hair. Deftly pulling at the ribbon, she unveiled a pair of black feline ears. “That very nearly _was_ me.”

Weiss could feel the blood drain from her face. _Oh._ A shiver raked goosebumps across her skin. _Oh._ Her hands were numb from shock. _Oh..._ Everything made sense. Dire, dreadful sense. All she could muster was a faint “I see” and a feeble “I’m sorry.”

* * *

They sat in awkward silence for a few minutes, but tension was finally abating. Weiss found herself wondering, “why are _you_ taking this—” she cut herself off. _That is a terrible way to phrase it._ She tried again. “There are courses focusing on faunus civil rights, so why are you taking _this_ class?”

“Civil rights isn’t my focus...” Blake answered wryly, “it’s environmental protection.”

Weiss winced. “Then the SDC is the epitome of everything you hate.”

“Well...” It sounded like Blake couldn’t find a tactful response, so she went for blunt, bludgeoning honestly. “Yes, yes it is.” Then her lips curled up into an impish grin. “Though—unless it’s been hosting book-burnings—it isn’t the epitome of _everything_ I hate.”

“You didn’t know about our annual book-burning retreat? We don’t even secure the proper permits for the emissions, we just bribe the inspectors.” Weiss smiled a little at the banter, but she looked somberly at Blake. “Do you think I can reform all of it?”

It took Blake a moment to answer. “I don’t know,” she began, “I don’t know you, but it doesn’t sound like you’re willing to stand on the sidelines. If you’ve been able to change so much on your own—”

“Not entirely on my own,” Weiss interjected. “I had some help,” her eye gave a slight twitch, “from a little red sugar fiend in undergrad. Environmental concerns were built into the geo-engineering curriculum, too, so that certainly forced me to open my eyes, but I’m afraid I haven’t had much chance to learn about the faunus aspect.”

Blake raised an eyebrow at what sounded like an inside joke, but when no explanation was forthcoming, she returned to the topic at hand. “That is part of why you’re taking this class, is it not?”

“I’m auditing the course, actually.” Weiss looked a bit sheepish at the admission. “It’s easier just to make sure that my father doesn’t know, so auditing it under the table means it stays off my transcript. Convincing the professor, however, took longer than anticipated so I missed the first week.” She looked pointedly at Blake. “I’m going to need all the help I can get.”

Blake smirked at the unasked question. “I’d be honored to help. Do you want to go over what we covered in the first class in more detail?”

“I would like that very much.”

“When do you want to get started?”

“Five years ago.”

“That’s not a valid option. The best I can do is ‘now.’”

“‘Now’ sounds good,” Weiss replied as she reached for her notebook.

**Author's Note:**

> I had set out to write some fluff. Instead, I ended up with this. _Oops?_
> 
> Head over to read _Going Off Script_ , starting from the [beginning](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6559084), or the [mid-point](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6559084#hiatus) where _Omission_ kind of interrupts.
> 
> And special thanks to [Lydia_Rogue ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lydia_rogue/works?fandom_id=767851) for listening to me whinge about retconning and for helping me wrangle _Script_ and _Omission_ back into compliance with each other.


End file.
